My old tarpaulin jacket

        Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket,
        An’ say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,
        An’ six stalwart lancers shall carry me, carry me,
        With steps that are mournful an’ slow.

        Then send for six brandies and sodas, soda,
        An’ set ’em all in a row, row . . .


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.252, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, jacket.

Blind luck

      You’ll have difficulty finding Ferozeshah (or Pheeroo Shah, as we Punjabi purists call it) in the atlas nowadays. It’s a scrubby little hamlet about halfway between Ferozepore and Moodkee, but in its way it’s a greater place than Delhi or Calcutta or Bombay, for it’s where the fate of India was settled — appropriately by treachery, folly, and idiot courage beyond belief. And most of all, by blind luck.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.245, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, luck.

Ever noticed

“I killed four myself,” says he solemnly, “and I tell ye Flashy, they died hard! They did that.” He paused, frowning. “ Have you ever noticed . . . how soft a man’s head is?”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.242, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, head.

Vale Fighting Bob

…they were burying the dead in scores, and I’d chanced to glance aside through an open tent-fly, and there, wrapped in a cloak, was the body of old Bob Sale. It quite undid me. He’d been such a hearty, kind old soul — I could see him mopping the noble tears from his red cheeks at my bedside in Jallalabad, or grinning from his table-head at Florentina’s wilder flights, or thumping his knee: “There’ll be no retreat from Lahore, what?” Now they were blowing retreat over him, old Fighting Bob; the grapeshot had got him when they stormed the jungle — the Quartermaster-General charging with the infantry! Well, thank God I wouldn’t have to break the news to her.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.239, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, retreat.

Extremely tired

“…his own men are so fagged, they’ll be marching on their chinstraps!”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.223, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, marching.

God-given gift of catastrophe

      It ain’t the kind of problem you meet everyday. I doubt if it’s ever been posed at Staff College . . . “Now then, Mr Flashman, you command an army fifty thousand strong, with heavy guns, well supplied, their lines of communication protected by an excellent river. Against you is a force of only ten thousand, with light guns, exhausted after a week’s forced marching, short of food and fodder and damned near dying of thirst. Now then, sir, answer directly, no hedging — how do you lose, hey? Come, come, you’ve just given excellent reasons for not taking a town that’s lying at your mercy! This should be child’s play to a man with your God-given gift of catastrophe! Well, sir?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.220, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tactics.

With the aid of a stick

I began by pointing out that I was an invalid — I’d only been able to limp into his presence with the aid of a stick — and that my first need was food, drink, and a doctor to look at my ankle. That took him aback — it always does, when you remind an Oriental of his manners…



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.218, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, manners.

Foreign service

      I’ve never cared, much, for service with foreign forces. At best it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and the rations are likely to pay havoc with your innards. The American Confederates weren’t bad, I suppose, bar their habit of spitting on carpets, and the worse I can say of the Yankees is that they took soldiering seriously and seemed to be under the impression that they had invented it.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.214, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, rations.

Hell and back

“You don’t know the Sikhs, sir, I do. They’ll fight their way to hell and back . . . for that little boy. And for their salt.”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.212, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, sikhs.

Too often to doubt

I’d never seen a pukka battle, or the way a seasoned commander (even one as daft as Paddy Gough) can manage an army, or the effect of centuries of training and discipline, or that other phenomenon which I still don’t understand but which I’ve watched too often to doubt: the British peasant looking death in the face, and hitching his belt, and waiting.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.210, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, death.

Statesmen and princes

Oh, I’d guessed there was steel inside my drunken, avid little houri, but hardly of the temper that could slaughter scores of thousands of men just for her own political convenience and personal comfort. Mind you, what other reasons do statesman and princes ever have for making war, when all the sham’s been stripped away?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.205-06, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, statesmen.

Plainly must

…the man was plainly must,* doolali, afflicted of Allah, too long in the hills altogether — but one doesn’t like to say so, straight out, not to a chap who affects tartan pants and has a Khyber knife across his lap.


*Must is the madness of the rogue elephant. Doolali = insane, from Deolali Camp, inland from Bombay, where generations of British soldiers (including the editor) were received in India, and were supposedly affected by sunstroke.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.203-04, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, TAGHERE.

Rightful place

      If life has taught me anything at all, it’s how to keep my countenance in the presence of stong, authoritative men whose rightful place is in a padded cell.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.203, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Difficult to miss

He was wearing a puggaree as big as himself, and enough jewellery to start a shop…


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.199, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, pugaree.

Could be seen (and heard)

…Goolab and the widow could be seen apparently disemboweling the Second Robber, who wasn’t taking it quietly.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.180, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, widow.

Scout first

Coward’s instinct if you like, but if I’m still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it’s because I shy at motes, never mind beams — and I don’t walk straight in where I can scout first.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.172, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Sundry viragos

…I sat grimly on, wishing I’d gone into Holy Orders and ignoring the blandishments of sundry viragos of the sort you can have for fourpence with a mutton pie and a pint of beer thrown in, but better not, for the pie meat’s sure to be off.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.171, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, mutton.

Villainous two-rupee bravos

…I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn’t have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I’ll never say a word against Boodle’s again, says I to myself; at least there you don’t have to sit with your back to the wall.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.170-71, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, survey.

Truth from falsehood

The trouble with the political service, you know, is that they can’t tell truth from falsehood. Even members of Parliament know when they’re lying, which is most of the time, but folk like Broadfoot simply ain’t aware of their own prevarications. It’s all for the good of the service, you see, so it must be true — and that makes it uncommon hard for straightforward rascals like me when we’re being done browner than an ape’s behind.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.166, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, falsehood.

Believe me &c

No mistake, it was pukka, and the sweat prickled on my skin as I read it for the tenth time:

        Most urgent to Number One alone. On the first night after receipt, you will go in native dress to the         French Soldier’s cabaret between the Shah Boorj and the Buttee Gate. Use the signals and wait
        for word from Bibi Kalil. Say nothing to your orderly.

Not even an “I remain” or “Believe me &c”. That was all.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.165-66, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cypher.

Before the tempest

      “Why not — have you heard something?”
      “Just the barra choop,” says he, grinning all over his ugly mug.
      “What the devil’s that?”
      “You don’t know — an old Khyber hand like you? Barra choop — the silent time before the tempest.” He cocked his head. “Yes, sir, I can hear it all right.”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.159, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tempest.

Leaving India

“…I’d not say that till I was riding the gridiron again.”*


*Aboard an East Indiaman. The reference is to the Company’s flag.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.159, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, gridiron.

Scrubbing away

      I was scrubbing away, whistling “Drink, puppy, drink”, when I heard a hand-bell tinkle, in the boudoir. You’ll have to wait a while, my dear, thinks I, but then I heard voices and realized she had summoned Mangla, and was giving instructions in a dreamy, exhausted whisper.
      “You may dismiss Rai and the Python,” murmurs she. “I shall have no need of them today . . . perhaps not tomorrow . . .”
      I should think not, indeed. So I sang “Rule Britannia”.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.155, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, indeed.

25 cents worth

…at first I supposed she’d looked in for another quarter-staff bout…


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.136, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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To a man

They were the most tireless old bores you ever struck, red herring worshippers to a man…


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.134, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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No-one’s fooled

It was the kind of face-saving settlement that’s arranged daily at Westminister and in parish councils, and no-one’s fooled except the public — and not all of them, either.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.133, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, public.

Hardly a parfit gentil knight

I guess I’m like Alick Gardner: I can’t abide wanton cruelty to good-looking women. Not by other folk, anyway.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.132, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Religion and ignorance

That’s what comes of religion and keeping women in ignorance.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.130, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Much beastliness

Like much beastliness in the world, suttee is inspired by religion, which means there’s no sense or reason to it…


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.130, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, suttee.

Salaam friend or foe

“Salaam, Shadman Khan!” and he shouted with delight and yelled in English: “Stand fast, foortee-foorth! — and in an instant I was looking down on the bloody snow over Gandamack, with the remnants of the 44th being cut down by tribesman swarming over their position . . . and I wondered which side he’d been on then. (I’ve since remembered there was a Shadman Khan among those ruffians who held me in Gul Shah’s dungeon, and yet another among the band who saved me from the Thugs at Jhansi in ’57 and stole out horses on the way to Cawnpore. I wonder if they were the same man. It has no bearing on my present tale, anyway; it was just an incident at the Bright Gate. But I think it was the same man; everybody changed sides in the old days.)


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.119, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, comrade.